To Live, To Die, To Sort of Live Again?
by Count Sagula
Summary: "What the hell are you doing?" Kisuke looked up behind him to find a blonde young man with whisker marks. "Oh, uh, this," Kisuke stammered, chuckling nervously. He realized that the scene of him and Tessai carrying an unconscious and bleeding teenager did not make for an innocent image. "I have a perfectly good explanation." The blonde's narrowed eyes did not bode well for Kisuke.
1. Chapter 1

To Live, To Die, To Sort of Live Again?

Disclaimer: Neither Naruto nor Bleach are mine, the copyrights go to Viz Media, Kishimoto, Kubo, et cetera, et cetera.

Chapter 1

III

It was a clear night out in Karakura Town. The streets had a faint whiff of car smoke, something that Naruto had gotten used to, but the atmospheric pollution did nothing to hide the gleaming stars in the sky. The moon hung high, the sparse wisps of clouds doing nothing to hide its eerie glow.

Well, at least it started that way.

A freak storm occurred, clouds brewing out of nowhere, hurtling a depressing rain down on upon the streets of Karakura Town, leaving one Uzumaki Naruto soaked to the bone.

"Well, at least the moon's gone," Naruto muttered to himself, his dull expression unmoving in face of the miniscule rivers flowing underneath his mop of yellow hair.

For much of his life, Naruto never liked the moon. Even after so many years, the brief, but intense days of the Fourth Shinobi War had plagued him. Far too many of his nights had been interrupted by the haunting image of a red moon, spinning tomoe swimming across his vision for the few moments it had once taken him to separate his nightmares from his new reality.

He may feel like he had just escaped a water prison jutsu, but he would take that any day over having to look up at the moon. Though he did have to admit that his uncomfortably wet underwear was definitely fighting that ancient conviction of his.

His eyes narrowed at the dwindling reiatsu not too far from his location on a rooftop and continued on his journey.

Naruto had noticed the odd reiatsu signature, which had been fluctuating and spiking far too much to be normal. He had exited the Karakura streets, entering a nearby alleyway so that he could quickly jump up to a rooftop unseen in order to travel faster to the location he had felt the wild reiatsu.

 _Reiryōku_ , Naruto correct his thoughts. _There is no way such chaotic energy could possibly be considered reiatsu._

It was true. Every graduate of Shin'ō Academy had to learn how to control their reiryōku, their raw spiritual energy, in order for them to become a Shinigami. Reiatsu was controlled, reiryōku was not, something he remembered due to it being drilled into his head all those years ago.

Still, Naruto did acknowledge that the previously flailing reiryōku was reminiscent of a Shinigami's. He supposed that he should probably worried about that, not to mention the other two Shinigami energy signatures that he could vaguely make out, one of which was definitely Captain-class, but he shoved that thought away. He was never one for pussyfooting around because of annoying things like fear.

Arriving at his destination, landing in a squat on an awning of a nearby shop some dozen or so meters from the street, he noticed that the two Shinigami energy signatures he could sense in the street were different from those he had previously sensed. Upon seeing two familiar figures, one with a familiar hat and cane holding an umbrella. It was the other figure that caught his attention, specifically what said figure was holding in his arms.

At the sight of the unconscious, and bleeding, teenager in a Shinigami outfit, Naruto couldn't stop himself from saying, "What the hell are you doing?"

Kisuke whipped around, eyes widening after instantly spotting Naruto's figure, flicking briefly to the teenager in Tessai's arms before returning to him.

"Oh, uh, this," Kisuke stammered, chuckling nervously at his quick mind easily deducing the not-so-innocent image of the situation. "I have a perfectly good explanation."

Naruto's eyes narrowed in suspicion at his fellow blonde nervously twirling his umbrella.

"Let's say we get out of the rain and talk about this like gentlemen over a cup of tea, yeah?" Kisuke said with a tentative smile.

III

Naruto looked at the man on the other side of the table with a dull expression. "Seriously?"

The two of them were inside of the Urahara Shop, Kisuke's base of operations hidden behind the front of a candy store. Naruto had followed Kisuke and Tessai to the shop, dried off with the towels provided by his hosts and patiently waited for Tessai to bandage the unconscious teenager, whose wounds Kisuke was sure Naruto had noticed to look suspiciously close to a soul's Hakusui and Saketsu pressure points.

After a brief wait for Tessai to brew some tea and serve it to the two blondes, Kisuke had explained the situation to Naruto, who seemed rather incredulous of the story Kisuke provided.

"You can't seriously think I'm dumb enough to buy that," Naruto said.

"It's the truth," Kisuke said a bit too cheerfully, but it was late at night and he hadn't slept all that well the past few nights.

Naruto ran a hand over his face as he took a deep and steadying breath. "A teenage artificial Shinigami is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard."

"It's the truth," Kisuke repeated himself, a tad more seriously.

"Why?" Naruto asked, elaborating at his seemingly confused look, "Why would you allow for this to happen. Don't even try to deny it, I know how paranoid you are and there is no fucking way that you would just allow a kid to sacrifice and endanger himself in your own town."

Kisuke let out a sigh, his cheerful disposition disappearing as he looked down at his tea cup, gently swirling it with a teaspoon. "Aizen has his eye on him."

Naruto's eyes narrowed at that.

"I wouldn't normally do this, you're right about that," Kisuke said, easily reading Naruto's unspoken question. "But I can't overlook anything that catches Aizen's curiosity."

"What interest would Aizen have with this Ichigo kid?" Naruto asked.

"It's a long story, but the short version is that Ichigo Kurosaki's father is Isshin Shiba's son," Kisuke said tiredly, ignoring Naruto's widened eyes. "He is also the son of a Quincy, among other things that would catch Aizen's attention."

"Quincy and Shinigami, eh," Naruto said, turning his head towards the room Ichigo was laid up in. "Yeah, I'd rather not let someone like Aizen get his hooks into him."

"And Hollow," Kisuke muttered, earning a sharp look from Naruto. "Like I said, long story."

Naruto seemed only slightly mollified by that response.

"I'm more interested in why you're here," Kisuke said, fiddling with a closed fan, eyes shining with an innocent curiosity.

He was sure Naruto didn't buy that for a minute. He knew that Kisuke had long since lost his innocence, replaced by a burning need for knowledge that had once allowed him to become the first official President of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute and Captain of the Twelfth Division of the Gotei 13.

"Sightseeing," Naruto replied easily, a singularly uninformative answer.

Kisuke quirked an eyebrow at his response.

"I've been making my way around Japan, I was in Kyoto just before this," Naruto expounded. "As much as I like traveling and seeing the sights and all that, sometimes I need to wind down, take a break and stay in a place for a little while; it's why I came here."

Kisuke hummed at that, spreading open his fan and waving it half-heartedly. His answer was still rather uninformative, his burning need for information left unsatisfied. It was only right to answer with a carefully selected barb, for he couldn't be truly rude as he was much too engrossed in his role as a host, despite their familiarity. "Who would've guessed, the wandering hermit taking a break to settle down for a little while. Yoruichi would be ecstatic."

"Yeah, she'd be quite worked up alright," Naruto said, his lips twitching erratically in a half-suppressed nervous laugh, his hand reflexively reaching up to scratch his cheek.

Naruto hadn't exactly been in contact with the purple-haired beauty for some time. Kisuke had known quite well that the lazy minx hadn't been all that thrilled with Naruto's desire to venture out on his own when Naruto had told her those many years ago. Kisuke had been present for the numerous times that she had expressed her irritation with the whiskered blonde. He was sure that she had many words to say about Naruto's sneaking out in the middle of the night to avoid any further arguments, along with the many the occasions that Kisuke's childhood friend had been able to find the spikey-haired blonde and slipped the leash once more.

With that reminder, Kisuke observed Naruto splitting his focus, no doubt stretching his senses. It had always struck Kisuke as odd that Naruto was able to be so naturally good at stealth and sensing the presence of others. His fellow blonde had been so enthusiastic and, dare he say, bubbly, to the point that the former Captain had once thought that sunshine occasionally leaked out from his eyes, as the rest of it was expertly hidden by his pants and underwear that covered the man's rear end, funneling it back up to his eyes.

Naruto usually would keep his wits about him, his passive sensory more than capable enough to catch any average or above average being's energy signature near him but the Onmitsukidō could bypass those. Not many, maybe a handful at most, but Yoruichi Shihōin was most definitely among them. Kisuke would like to say the same about himself, but he could only manage it when the blonde was busy with something else, and only half the time even then. However, should the situation call for him to actively be on the lookout, the Visored in front of him could not be tricked, save for Aizen himself. Maybe.

"How long do you plan on staying?" Kisuke asked, fishing for information in the hope that the Visored might let loose with his split focus.

Naruto hummed absentmindedly, his attention, unfortunately, at least half focused on the conversation, despite his careful inspection of the Urahara Shōten. "Not sure, might be a couple weeks might be a couple years, you know how it is."

Kisuke nodded in understanding. Time flew by when one lived as long as most Shinigami did. Humans lived spontaneously, their lives too short for truly meaningless activities to take up a majority of their time, cities and countries growing, changing, rapidly; Shinigami were a long-lived people, possibly immortal if uncumbered by disease or injury, and the true reason behind their languid lifestyle was because quick action and stress were unsuitable for the many years they would live.

"Why?" Naruto asked, his eyes shining a bit more as he refocused on Kisuke's own, a dull eyebrow raised due to the innocent expression Kisuke carefully wore.

"No reason, I just figured you would want to stay here for a while. You did come to visit me, after all," Kisuke attempted, his fan waving and voice both jovial, though they didn't quite hide his nervousness.

Naruto just continued staring.

Pinned down under the unrelenting gaze, Kisuke soon folded. He had never been all that intimidated by Naruto when they had served the Gotei 13 in any official capacity, but that had changed after they all left Seireitei.

"Well, to be honest, I'm not sure how this whole situation will play out. Sending a bunch of teens, Yoruichi excepted, to Seireitei is a risky move," Kisuke admitted reluctantly.

While he was usually one to ignore his moral compass, sending a bunch of kids to a decidedly hostile military base was a bit much. It didn't help that one of the kids was the son of a longtime friend, one he discreetly kept in contact with even while on the run from the seemingly strict military force Isshin had still been a Captain of.

That the same friend's wife was also attacked in what he considered to be his territory still weighed heavily on, despite the sure belief in Masaki's strength. He still didn't know what the hell had happened to Masaki, something Ryūken was aggravatingly tight-lipped about when he had analyzed the body of Isshin's wife.

Naruto looked at him incredulously. "You can't seriously be asking me to go back to Seireitei. Who knows how Yama-jī would take that. For all we know, he may just hunt me down himself, and I know for a fact that he'll run through the kids if they stand between us."

"True, true," Kisuke allowed, knowing that could be a possibility. "He would certainly take your presence seriously, and it would definitely put the kids in danger, but that might just be what we need."

At Naruto's inquisitive look, Kisuke snapped his fan shut and used it to point in Ichigo's direction. "His spiritual pressure is growing at an astounding rate, and we all know that a soul's reiatsu increases when faced with the possibility of danger."

"Are you seriously suggesting you want Masaki's kid to fight the Sōtaichō?" Naruto said, his tone half-amused and half-concerned. Despite that, Kisuke didn't miss the slight edge to his voice.

"No, no, that would end terribly!" Kisuke quickly refuted, grasping at an alternative phrasing for a crucial half-second. "But knowing the height of power he may one day achieve, possibly even eclipse? I think that would be good for him."

"Or he could be crushed by the old dragon's presence," Naruto countered more seriously; it would seem that crucial half-second was enough to tip Naruto enough. "Why are you so dead set on the kid increasing his power? If anything, you should be wanting to curb it."

"He's a living soul, his potential could trump Aizen's, naturally," Kisuke replied carefully in a casual voice.

Naruto's eyes narrowed, his expression seemingly chilling the room as a shudder ran down Kisuke's spine. "I hope you don't mean to drag him into this war."

 _I hope you don't mean to turn him into a weapon._

The unspoken implication did not pass Kisuke by, who quickly waved his hands in a placating gesture, an annoyingly familiar nervous laugh leaving his lips unbidden. "No, no, no, I would never do such a thing, Uzumaki-san."

Kisuke's trick didn't work as he hoped; Naruto disliked it when others treated him so politely, what with being the casual person that he was, especially when it was done by his friends, something he had used to redirect Naruto's anger slightly the past. If anything, it seemed to irk him even more.

"Urahara-taichō," Naruto said softly, the seemingly polite and respectful address of his former title accompanying the well-hidden, but most definitely menacing, tone caused perspiration to run down Kisuke's back, "children are meant to worry about grades and romantic interests and videogames and ramen and whatever else floats into their innocent minds, not megalomaniacs with entirely too much power or sociopathic, invisible creatures knocking on their doors."

"Ahh, Naruto, I would never forcefully drag them into my mess," Kisuke said, blatantly lying in the face of the sole expression that signaled the beginning of that horrible memory responsible for so many of his nightmares from a century past. "I assure you, I have crafted numerous contingencies for the worst-case scenario. This…endeavor is merely a small curio, a harmless experiment for the sake of providing defense to the Kurosaki family." Knowing he would never be believed for a wholly virtuous motive, he tacked on, "With the small chance to one day cure our fellow Visored."

Kisuke knew he could bullshit like the best of them, nearly to the point of exonerating himself and the Visored, he had been able to convince both the ancient Sōtaichō and the rule abiding Kuchiki Ginrei, whose opinion mattered far more than almost four dozen stuffy nobles, but it was different with Naruto.

The Visored in front of him had always been an unknown quantity, years of familiarity decreasing by a small margin, whose intelligence varied between being dumber than a doornail, as it was his idea that Kisuke, Yoruichi, Tessai, and the Visored stay for at least the first half of their trial, which the whiskered Visored had felt vindicated for as they had almost won, to being the possible brainchild of Aizen and Kisuke, a thought that terrified Kisuke quite a bit and left him many sleepless nights after Yoruichi's ranting had brought him up from his latest success at slipping her leash.

Which end of the intelligence spectrum the spiky-haired blonde truly was still mystified him to this very night and whether or not the whiskered man believed his lie was so high in the air that Kisuke kept fanning himself while keeping a loose grip on Benihime and his breath steady; only an amateur would hold their breath during a tense moment or in the middle of determining whether their lie was believed, especially in the possibility of a violent reaction.

"Good. Make sure those contingencies are in place soon; you never know when Aizen might strike," Naruto said pleasantly. The smile on his face did nothing to reassure Kisuke; the murder in his eyes might have had something to do with that. "It's always good to know that you are still looking for a cure for us Visored."

Kisuke couldn't stop his lips from twitching maniacally ever so slightly at the rising man's quip; his somewhat easygoing appearance's only saving grace being the fan that covered it. There wasn't much research to be done in a cure for the Visored condition, he was well aware of it and he very much doubted that the man currently stretching his limbs after rising from his seated position wasn't also aware of it.

The Quincy's unique reishi arrows certainly helped to stabilize the Hollowfication phenomenon, something Kisuke was sure was research for a more advanced and stable Hollowfication. The results of which Kisuke had very little doubt the other Hōgyoku creator used to create the Visored/Arrancar thing that infected Isshin's dear wife, and there were several theories that could be looked into, but Kisuke had hit a roadblock from pursuing them.

All those theories of Kisuke's to look into in order for him to reverse the Visored process was either far too dangerous, required extremely amoral actions that would raise red flags for even the current Captain of the Twelfth Division, just plain stupid, or required the Hōgyoku; he had been outvoted by the Visored that the latter option fell into the 'just plain stupid' category, much to his dismay.

If all of that hadn't been enough, there was, apparently, one more theory, one that Kisuke had either never spoke of or had been discarded immediately, one that only the whiskered blonde across from him knew about. Kisuke had tried to get more information about it from Naruto but his formerly lower-ranked fugitive had been annoyingly tight-lipped.

Of course, there had been that one time, shortly before Naruto had left, that he had pestered the Visored a bit too much and the man thrown up a massive Kidō barrier around the two of them.

Kisuke knew that Naruto hadn't been, and most likely still wasn't, the most proficient in Kidō, despite his previous division, but Naruto's innate curiosity of all things that went bang combined with the boredom of being trapped in a warehouse had made him bother each and every one of the residents that was close by, which had included the three non-Visored fugitives, resulted in many odd things. They had all interacted with, and had eventually taught something to, the energetic blonde, for it had been impossible to evade the persistent bugger in their confined space, but it was Hachigen, being the most patient one of the bunch, that he had spent the most amount of time with, and, being the most genial and helpful person of them all, that gave the help with Naruto's Kidō abilities.

Kisuke still wasn't too sure how much Naruto had actually learned, he had been far too distracted with finding a cure for the Visored at the time, but Naruto had managed to learn how to create barriers that could block out all sight, sound, and reiatsu. It was something that Kisuke had insisted that each and every one of them learn for the sake of security, and escaping detection, from Seireitei's and Aizen's sensors in the Living World. Naruto had used it sparingly, so much so that even Yoruichi, who had spent almost more time with Naruto than Hachigen had, hadn't known about it, much less Kisuke.

What Naruto did inside of that barrier was something Kisuke had never told anyone. Tessai and Yoruichi had the most information of the fugitives, scraps picked up by hushed whispers escaping from his nightmares, but even they weren't told what he witnessed, something that both he and Naruto had kept their mouths shut about.

Of course, Kisuke willfully ignored that he may have been the one at fault, that he had literally asked for it, amongst the other things that his less morally-inclined, past self may had done that made him so deserving of that horror, which Kisuke had also been sure to withhold.

Not that Yoruichi didn't seem to have caught on to, what with the half-concerned, half-amused glances she had sent his way whenever Naruto was brought up.

As Naruto left the room, heading towards the room Kisuke had pointed out for him earlier in the evening, Kisuke couldn't help but feel a tad irritated. Naruto had gotten away without answering his plea for help.

It was difficult for him to even ask the Visored for help. Kisuke was well aware that the vestiges of his broken pride in the wake of discovering someone else had replicated his most precious secret, using it to ruin the lives of too many of his friends, had turned him from the somewhat innocent, ignoring his amoral experimentation, loyal Shinigami, who would have no qualms about asking his friends for help, to the scheming, manipulative fugitive with a hobby for research more willing to manipulate events and people for years in advance to do his bidding than ask for help.

For Naruto to evade him during one of those few moments where he built up enough courage to ask for anything, to bear a weakness was hurtful.

Kisuke waved his fan over his face in an instinctive need to cover his disappointment and hurt. The digits on his right hand brushed against Benihime, his Zanpakutō's voice comforting him as his drummed against her cane form.

 _I suppose I will have to work on some of those zanier contingency plans._ Kisuke thought to himself tiredly. With Naruto's involvement, he would have no choice but to work harder on more solutions to his ever-present nightmare of Aizen attaining his Hōgyoku to feed into the madman's own.

Kisuke wasn't sure if that eventuality would ever occur, the slight hope of his being able to convince Naruto to enter Seireitei once more in order to increase the pathetic odds of stopping Aizen from capturing Byakuya's little sister, but he had given promised Naruto to have several contingencies in place. He hadn't actually promised anything, not even really given his word, but the lie, while serving to prevent Naruto from lashing out at him also damned him to keep it, and Naruto was not someone to forget a promise.

 _Serves you right,_ a familiar feminine voice spoke in his head.

 _Hime-chan, how could you?_ Kisuke answered back playfully, a grin coming to his as he fluttered his eyelashes and waved his fan in front of his face.

A rather unfeminine snort was all he received to his coy playfulness.

He let out a tired huff, his eyes drooping ever so slightly as the weariness that had settled in his bones more than a century ago made its annoying presence known more so than usual.

Unfortunately, the exhaustion wasn't enough to guarantee a night without him needing to put a barrier to stop any noise from escaping, he was too anxious and worried for his annoying, but thankfully occasional, habit of nightmare-induced muttering to occur. It was, however, enough that he almost missed the quiet sound of the door Naruto just exited from opening once more.

A narrow-eyed glance to the corner of his eye, one of exhaustion instead of suspicion, revealed his longtime friend and companion, Tsukabishi Tessai.

Most would have been astounded that he could even be quiet, what with his usual boisterous behavior, but the two of them had been friends with the former Captain of the Onmitsukidō since childhood. Anything one learned, the others were aware of; anything one mastered, the others acquired a working knowledge of. Being fugitives only made their knowledge and practice of being of so undetectable only further increased what Kisuke and Tessai had learned from the Flash Goddess.

"Tenchō, Uzumaki-san gave this to me before he went to his room," Tessai said, his enormous hand grazing across the surface of the table between and depositing a small slip of paper in front of him before shuffling out of the room with two motions of the sliding door.

Kisuke looked at it with curiosity, weary tiredness nearly making it impossible for him to keep his eyes open, but he managed.

'I'll look out for the kids. I promise.' Holes carved somewhat neatly across the stark white of the paper.

Kisuke smiled tiredly. He felt a twinge of hope that he might have a decent night of sleep. After all, come hell or a maniacal madman hell-bent on becoming a god, Uzumaki Naruto does not break his promises.

"Too close! You're too close!" a voice yelped.

"Tenchō! Ichigo has regained consciousness! Tenchō!" Tessai called.

Kisuke's smile dropped. _He had to have done that on purpose! The timing is too good!_

With that, Kisuke stood up and straightened from his tired slouch, fan flowing open as an exuberant expression took over his face.

Kisuke had an image to maintain.

III

Sleep was something that Uzumaki Naruto never had problems with. Whether it was in the middle of a Captain's meeting or before and after his shift of keeping guard during a night's rest on a mission. He had been an orphan who learned that conking out for a night was much easier than dealing with the sadness of not being tucked in by his dead parents like he had heard the bigger kids in the playgrounds tease the younger ones about.

It had served him well when he had been sleeping on the streets as one of the kids in worst parts of Rukongai, as he had been able to block out the grunts and moans coming from the brothel that had a perfect hiding spot behind the trash bins or the screams and pleas for help that he forced himself to ignore when he had been in a far too weakened or exhausted state during his younger years.

It may have been painful, at least emotionally, when he had to fight his natural instinct to help people, but he could do it. It was a leftover habit from his days as a shinobi in order to salvage the abysmal reputation that he had partially brought upon himself during the years before he knew that earning the people's ire was the wrong kind of attention.

Hell, that habit from his old life had nearly ruined his family during his time as Hokage, his celebrity status garnering more requests for help by the impoverished citizens, questions by his subordinates, far too much paperwork to look over and sign, numerous meetings setup by councils he had established to reduce said paperwork, or just plain attention by all the gushing children, not to mention their provocative mothers, and occasionally their fathers, that wanted to meet the idol he had become.

If it weren't for Sakura-chan putting her foot down, he may have ruined things with his wife and his children. He had only wished that it hadn't been on his nuts as she put the absolute maximum of her strength into strangling, which was just a touch below what Kurama could heal, assuming the furred fox could stop choking on his laughter to send some chakra his way.

Still, if he could fight the once-habit, which had eventually formed into a decent, annoyingly sizeable portion of his personality, he could ignore the screams of shock and general yelling of the room not too far from the one he claimed as his own, which carried a faint, but altogether pleasing, whiff of ramen. It helped that the loud voices hadn't lasted long, making the half-annoyed formed barrier to mute all outside sounds a bit redundant.

His time as an orphan had provided many lessons, others would call them 'quirks,' each coming with their own drawbacks, but he had far too few to deal with boredom. The fact that the ever stingy Kisuke threw an apron at him and made him man the counter of a largely unpopular shop did little to help his slow death by monotony.

 _Has anyone actually died of boredom?_ Naruto thought to himself. The snort he received from the back of his mind was both entirely unhelpful and entirely ignored.

His fingers itched to play with some of the items hidden behind the counter, the storage space of which was subtly expanded to allow for convenient access to the stock meant for any Seireitei-assigned Shinigami, or otherwise, or the occasional non-Seireitei affiliated, spiritually aware passerby. He knew that it was impolite for an employee to help himself to their place of work's stock, at least without prior permission, but his boredom was fraying at the few manners that he allowed for himself.

Whether it was some sixth sense the man had or observation of his twitching fingers, Tessai cleared his throat and looked down at him shrewdly.

"The workday is almost done. Feel free to hang up your apron on the way out," Tessai said.

Evidently, he didn't buy the innocent beaming expression that Naruto had sent his way. The blonde wondered if he was losing his touch. Then again, the former Captain of the Kidō Corps was rather perceptive, a stark contrast to his stern, but boisterous and amusing demeanor; Naruto mused that it was befitting for someone in such frequent contact with the man's partner.

"Yessir," Naruto jokingly clapped out the most serious salute he had ever given a superior officer, former or not. Neatly hanging his apron on the hooks, Tsukabishi-taichō had always been a bit of a neat freak but nice enough a person to not force his subordinates to conform to his standards, which Naruto respected by adhering to the ex-Shinigami's rules, he hopped over the counter.

He heard a faint goodbye as he left, one he returned with a lazy wave over his shoulder, the peacock feather-shaped wind chimes he'd discovered on his travels and shipped to an offsite postal address of Urahara's bringing a small smile to his face. With a quick ruffle of Jinta's hair and a pat on cute little Ururu's hair, along with a blush-inducing beaming smile, he merged onto the half-empty sidewalk.

He never had an end destination in mind, focused more on exploring Karakura's sprawling metropolis and reacquainting himself to any and all changes made from the last time he was in the city.

Despite it not having been all that long, he couldn't help but feel amazed by the changes. It had grown outward, more so than he had thought was possible in the time of the half-decade since his last visit, the one that had brought Japan to his interest.

He was reminded of the incredible feats that humans could accomplish.

While he had never been one of those souls that thought themselves separate from humanity, many of whom looked down on it with a varied mix of emotions, he couldn't really say he related too much to them. Sure, he wasn't like those stuck up souls like the Central 46, or those nobles that looked down on the short-lived and seemingly powerless beings, but he couldn't say he related to humans perfectly.

He had been a Shinigami for some time, carrying the mark of 'Rukongai trash' when he had grown up as an orphan a second time in Rukongai before that, more so in Shin'ō Academy, but the citizens of Rukongai treated him oddly after his entrance in the Gotei 13, even in the districts he once roamed; he had traveled in the Living World for a century without aging, forced from Seireitei after being exposed to a dangerous artifact and his being changed into that which was most hated by his former comrades; his life in the Elemental Nations was not at all normal, scorned and spat upon as a demon during childhood which turned to admiration and exalted as a hero in the midst of his adolescence, always a rebel and troublemaker whether as an Academy student or as a shinobi.

Naruto had never been 'normal'. A neglected, shunned, and 'demonic' orphan, a mischievous prankster, a troublemaking rebellious mercenary, a charismatic, low-ranked hero, a vaunted and respected, yet somehow peaceful dictator, a thieving and homeless orphan, a spat upon and hated activist, an annoying piece of 'Rukongai trash,' a diligent, yet somehow suspicious Shinigami bounced around far too much, a hybrid monster, or just a traveling hermit; Naruto was and had been all these things, but 'normal' was quite in his rolodex of titles.

It was because of all of that he had been, he had reveled in his time traveling as a 'human,' impressed, if not all that mystified, by the achievements of all these humans whose chakra reserves were less than even a single kikaichū of an infant Aburame.

The people of the Elemental Nations may have spent some millennium or two in savage warfare that reshaped the landscape an unbelievable number of times, but they had done so without the technology of the present, and their technology had advanced so quickly due to the aid and understanding of their chakra pools, ones so large that the chakra pool of an average civilian child from Naruto's time was the equivalent of a freakin' Bijū compared to those of the most physically powerful of humans.

In the wake of what Orochimaru alone could accomplish in a mere three decades, it was incredible to see how the populous people of the Living World could come up with such innovative technology to further their growth, the majority of which was done in the past century, all with the absolute bare minimum amount of chakra needed to merely survive.

Eventually, despite a lack of conscious, his feet led him to the doorstep of a small, two-story house with an offset, attached portion. He hadn't meant to arrive at his destination, had disappeared for more than half a decade shortly after the attack on the mother and son of the Kurosaki family.

Before he knew it, the side door reserved for family members had opened, his feet planting themselves mere inches away from their doorstep, lost in his nostalgic daze for evidently too long.

Still, he held out some hope. Children often forgot names and faces of even their most precious family members if they disappeared for too long. The girls had been what? Four? Five maybe? Definitely too young to remember his handsome face. Ichigo had been older, ten, maybe, but the kid seemed to have changed quite a bit, if the racket he heard last night was to be believed.

Just because Naruto had a rather crisp memory of faces of his childhood, both times, didn't mean the Kurosaki children would. His childhoods had been different, too filled with loneliness, interspersed with sneers and glares and rejection, or much too filled with hard times that were just plain forgetful. The Kurosaki home was filled with much more love than his childhood apartment had ever been, even without their mother's presence.

Though the strawberry-boy did seem to have kept Naruto's habit of witty nicknames (and they were witty, no matter Yoruichi-chan said about the matter. If she didn't like hers, then she could up with one that didn't involve so many damn syllables. Seriously, who would ever call someone by a nickname three times as long as their name?).

Geta-Bōshi, though. How did that one slip past Naruto's notice? Still, he was willing to swallow his pride and call Kisuke by that; his little nephew had won the rights to that nickname and he was alright with that.

When the door opened, he saw a flash of light blonde hair, confused brown eyes meeting his own for a moment as she held up a spatula. The moment passed, her eyes widening slightly before he felt her head collide with his stomach, thin arms wrapping tightly around his waist.

"Whiskers-oji-san!" a muffled cry came, soft, dark brown eyes peering up at him with a happy, if slightly tearful, smile. "You came back! I missed you so much!"

Whatever hope he held out for the Kurosaki family's forgetfulness was shattered as the little blonde more than a foot shorter than him took his hand and dragged him down the hall and announced his presence. He couldn't help but feel a mixture of amusement and irritation at her scolding him for not taking his shoes off at the door when she had yanked him away from the doormat.

 _Well_ , Naruto thought, an apologetic grin on his face while internally amused at the fact that an eleven-year-old Yuzu was berating him like her and Karin's four-year-old selves used to for his disappearance and lack of visiting, along with Karin's deadpan expression that did little to hide her amusement and Isshin's comical crying as the man prostrated himself in front of a giant, blown up picture of his wife's face. _Perhaps this isn't so bad._

When Ichigo ambled down the stairs, the boy took one look at his mischievous grin as he loosened his jaw, jumped the railing and planted a foot in his face, a small blush on the teen's face.

"So mean to your beloved uncle, little Berry-chan!" Naruto shouted from his place on the ground.

He could've sworn the boy knew Shunpo with how quick Ichigo was to plant his other foot in face as well.

 _Still worth it_ , Naruto thought to himself with a grin as the boy almost his height shook him violently with a blush on his face.

III – Author's Note – Word Count: ~6.3k – Published on 4/07/2018

Yo! I'm back, and not with a new chapter for either The Reluctant Rokudaime (TRR) or An Unworkable Gig (AUG), the latter of which really deserves a new chapter, especially as I have over 10k words for it that need just need to be edited and reworked slightly before it's ready. Anyways, I figured I'd try my own hand at a crossover. I actually have quite a few crossover story ideas, most of which include Naruto, mostly the character but also the series as a whole.

I should really finish my first published stories, but I somehow got hooked back into Bleach and I felt that I should add this to the pool of Bleach-Naruto crossover fanfics, which I have yet to find any really good fanfics, with the exception of Kenchi618's True Warriors Never Die, which is unfinished, Caliburn0's Bleached Whirlpool, which updates slowly a tad slowly/infrequently but delivers well-written chapters that are long enough to make the wait most definitely worth it, and AnisoulJ93's The Prankster God of Huecco Mundo, which is also unfinished, if a bit riddled with grammatical and/or spelling errors that only detract slightly from the writing.

For those who were wondering about my other two unfinished stories, they will be updated eventually. Probably by the end of the year. Maybe. Possibly. There, you won't be disappointed by the low bar that I just set for myself in terms of scheduling.

For those specifically here about The Reluctant Rokudaime (I'm not the only one that scrolls to the bottom of an author's other story's latest update for news on the story that I am more interested in, right? For reviews, it would be nice if you at least one person said that they do this too so I don't feel like an asshole for doing it), the next chapter(s) are in the planning stages, with one scene written that I might just have to either throw out or move to a latter chapter. I am quite sure that the story won't go on for too long, I'm thinking a maximum of 10-12 chapters total and a ceiling of 100k for word count, maybe 120k if I don't cut exposition judiciously like I did for chapter three. The major hold up for chapter four is because quite a bit of the scenes that I've planned aren't in chronological order, or I decided that certain scenes would be saved for flashbacks latter in the story. So far, I have until around the end of the Gokage Summit planned out, along with how I want Hashirama and Madara's real story to be planned out, which is AU as of the end of TRR's second chapter, but I haven't completely addressed how I want it to be presented, along with Sasuke's storyline and how I want the Fourth Shinobi War to go. That, and I also don't want any of the humor in the story to be forced in order to detract from the general seriousness of the story, which it had become quite serious in the third chapter and most of the planning involves more seriousness instead of humor, which was commented on by some of the reviews and something I would like to add more of.

Also, those interested in just general wait-time/update schedule, all I can say is that I read far more fanfiction than I write, and I don't mean in terms of word count read vs written, I mean how much time I spend reading vs writing. I really should increase my writing time but it cuts into my reading time a lot because I have a tendency to write for like ten hours straight, skipping food and water and just passing my entire day in a constant ramble of words. Other times, I just suck at coming up with scenes for chapters and/or the plot or character development/interaction.

To those who were wondering about any questions or whatnot from reviews and if I even read them, I assure you, I do. I'm like that guy in a group chat that silently reads everything that is going on but doesn't comment at all.

Alright, enough of my rambling, I swear these Author's Notes are getting near a thousand words if I don't stop myself from typing (mostly) irrelevant crap.

As always, until next time, don't die.


	2. Chapter 2

To Live, To Die, To Sort of Live Again?

Disclaimer: Neither Naruto nor Bleach are mine, the copyrights go to Viz Media, Kishimoto, Kubo, et cetera, et cetera.

Chapter 2

III

"Naruto, it's good to see you again," Isshin said sincerely, shortly after Ichigo left.

The young teen had apparently arrived shortly before Naruto himself had to, staying for the early dinner and grabbing a few changes of clothes for the sake of appearances as he had told Isshin and his sisters that he would be staying over at a friend's place for a few nights. The brat had choked on his meal rather hilariously when Naruto had commented that was the type of excuse one would say if they planned to spend a night with a lady-friend on the sly.

Ichigo may seem like the only thing he received from his father was his impeccable height, but the well-known Shiba antics certainly ran in his veins, however muted, if the comical red expression on the boy's face was any indication.

Shortly after the still fuming and embarrassed Ichigo left, Isshin revved up his antics to the point of embarrassing even Yuzu, making the two turn in for an early night, despite the blonde's cute and stern pouts. Naruto was gracious enough to help out by teasing Karin and rubbing her cheek against his own and extoling how much he missed his adorable 'Kari-chan,' which drove the twins to their rooms for the night.

Only Isshin and Naruto remained in the living room, which was closed off in one of Naruto's Kidō sound barriers.

"You as well. The twins have grown up to be as adorable as ever," Naruto replied lightly.

"I didn't think I would ever see you again," Isshin replied honestly, a mild glare that fell away too quickly, letting Naruto know that the man wasn't too upset with him.

"I should've stayed and helped," Naruto said, raising a hand when Isshin opened his mouth, seemingly to protest. "I'm sure you had everything under control, but I owed those little munchkins at least that much. Single father splitting his time between twin girls and a slightly older son is too much for any normal person to handle much less with your situation."

Isshin paused for a moment, before he dipped his head slightly, acknowledging Naruto's words but not quite agreeing with him. "I managed as well as I could. I love those little girls so much, and they've always responded to me best, so I focused more on them than I did on Ichigo, even after all that happened. I'm just happy that they had you for the few years that they did. Shibas have always been a large family, but they can't know about my half of the family without endangering them."

Naruto let out a snort. "So, all they got was good ole crazy Whiskers-oji-san and you're thanking me for that?"

Isshin let out a chuckle at that. "I wouldn't put it that way, but they at least got to know someone from my side of the family, even if it was through unofficial adoption. All of us Shibas are a little crazy."

A sly grin crossed Naruto's face. "Please, you Shibas may be crazy but even you idiots drew the line at adopting some nutjob from Rukongai that damn near started a civil war."

"Didn't stop us from building you a little house in the woods, did it?" Isshin shot back.

"A little house?" Naruto said incredulously, "That's like calling the Sōtaichō some old guy with a fancy walking stick. That place was a freakin' mansion!"

"What can I say? We Shibas like to live and let live," Isshin boasted.

"Oh, and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the numerous 'guests' that came and go so often," Naruto said with another snort.

"Alright, maybe we didn't hide our 'evil masterplan' all that well," Isshin admitted with an amused grin.

"You said it was a bookclub. I should've known you morons would never pick up a book," Naruto muttered to himself.

"Oi, I read! I'm a doctor!" Isshin protested.

"You sure? Cause I remember Masaki saying otherwise," Naruto said slyly.

"Stupid Shinji, saying that I should study Korean instead of Japanese as a damn prank," Isshin muttered to himself, a depressed cloud hovering over his head.

Naruto let out a laugh at the sight of his old friend's amusing antics. Unfortunately, it died soon after, cut short when the bearded man looked up and stared at him, a grave expression killing any humor that he'd seen far too often before he left Karakura.

"Ichigo is going to Seireitei," Isshin stated.

"Probably," Naruto replied.

"Will you protect him?" Isshin asked, his eyes silently carrying a silent plea.

"Probably," Naruto repeated.

There was a pause. "From Aizen?"

Another pause. "With my dying breath."

The two just stared at each other, before Isshin scratched his beard contemplatively and said, "Seems like a bit much."

"I made a promise to Aizen, once upon a time. Whether I'll have to keep it will be up to him."

"You never did tell me what that promise was," Isshin commented.

"Best-case scenario, you'll never have to find out," Naruto replied.

"And if the worst-case scenario comes up?" Isshin said.

Naruto rose to his feet and walked around the couch while he said, "Hopefully it doesn't come to that."

"If it does?" Isshin said, his voice still light, even if there was a desperate edge to it.

Naruto paused, his body turned away from Isshin as his left hand rested on the head of the couch cushion, his finger drumming against them.

"Will you force Ichigo to make the same the choice I made?" Isshin tried again, no longer making any effort to hide his desperation.

The blonde let out a slow, purposeful breath. He glanced back, Killing Intent flooding the room as his left eye gazed at Isshin, a sickly, jaundiced yellow tint forming a small circle between the slit emerald iris and the purple sclera interspersed with black bloodshot veins running through it. " **It won't come to that, Isshin. Got it?** "

Naruto blinked, the moment was over, his eye back to his usual cerulean color as the Killing Intent disappeared so suddenly that Isshin wasn't quite sure if it was ever truly there.

"See you around, Goat-Face," Naruto's voice called out from the hallway, a hand thrown over his shoulder in a half-hearted wave of goodbye. A second later, Isshin heard the door open and close, signaling that the Visored had left.

III

Naruto stood with his arms crossed, his face blank.

It had been three days since Kisuke had severed Ichigo's Chain of Fate, binding his arms and dropping him inside the Encroachment Pit, as Naruto had been taking to calling it. Surprisingly, it had taken Ichigo only two hours for him to complete the next phase of Kisuke's training program, pulling out a long, black butcher knife-like sword.

He hadn't stayed the entire three days, hadn't even seen the beginning of Ichigo's training; by the time he had arrived back from his night in the Kurosaki home, Kisuke had already dropped Ichigo in the pit, and Naruto was too bored to wait around for Ichigo to get out of the pit. Kisuke had ensured him that he would send a message when Ichigo had reawakened his Shinigami powers.

Instead of sticking around, he'd went to find the other kids. Thankfully, due to Tessai's warning, he knew that two of the kids were being trained by a certain cat and he'd approached stealthily in order to avoid a confrontation. He had only been partially successful on that front, as he was sure that Yoruichi had noticed him, but, surprisingly, she didn't call him out, doing nothing more than letting her eyes flicker over to his hidden position.

From what he could observe, she had the two of the kids, Sado, or Chad, as his friends call him, and Orihime, if he remembered correctly, focus on consciously calling their power forth.

Chad, whose overall demeanor reminded him somewhat of Darui, had been able to summon a second skin on his right arm. The boy, though he looked more like a man than a child, could use his reiatsu to enhance his strength and durability to far above normal human levels, with a single punch able to knock down a tree, and that was before he even called upon the second skin.

The resemblance to Darui only increased when he had been able to use 'El Directo,' a medium to long-range beam of supercharged reiatsu. It was too bad that the technique had knocked him out after his first use. He had since worked to increase his stamina so that he could use it multiple times and overall familiarity with his power.

The young man's power had worried him for a little bit, as Naruto could feel the distinct Hollow-like taint Chad's reiatsu took when he donned his right arm's second skin. Naruto found it a bit ironic that Chad had called out the name of his ability to be 'Brazo Derecha de Gigante,' or the 'Right Arm of the Giant.'

The girl, whose hair color was something he couldn't help but grin at, had been able to call up her own ability, which was formed from her six-petal hairpin. 'Shun Shun Rikka,' as Orihime happily christened it, was capable of two main abilities, both using the fairies that the hairpin housed, that shielded her and healed injuries. While she could also use her fairies to attack, it still comprised of a shield, and it barely counted, seeing as the bubbly girl just didn't like violence.

There was a bit of strangeness with her healing ability, something Naruto was sure Yoruichi had already picked up on; she had spent far too much time with Kisuke to miss such a thing, not to mention her own former position of being the Commander of the Onmitsukidō.

The two had made decent progress, something that Naruto was sure would allow the two to take on Hollows weaker than a Menos Grande rather well. Hell, with a bit of experience and couple days of training, he was sure that the two would even be able to hold off a Gillian-class opponent, possibly even take on out. It was impressive for only a couple days of work.

Despite their progress, Naruto was disappointed. Not in them, for they were children, neither even capable of interacting with meagre Plus-souls less than two months prior; to expect them to be able to do the things they were capable with only a couple days of training would've been ludicrous.

What Naruto was disappointed by was not the children, but in Yoruichi. Sure, she was helping them call on their power willingly, outside of a combat or otherwise strenuous situation, and she was working on their stamina, but it wasn't enough. These were children, not Shin'ō Academy recruits, thus had no true understanding of fighting an enemy combatant seriously. They may have the natural aptitude and raw strength to take out unseated Shinigami, but that wouldn't do much for the higher-ups, such as seated Shinigami; god forbid those two come up against anyone higher than a sixth seat or have the misfortune of encountering a Vice-Captain-class opponent, much less a Captain-class opponent, they would be crushed in an instant.

It wasn't just power those two lacked, it was experience, something that could allow even a Shin'ō Academy student to beat a seated Shinigami officer. They had no combat experience, no true sense of teamwork, and they had only ten days to learn to use their innate abilities to a level that could help them break into Seireitei, a military organization that had been around before Jesus had been born.

Naruto didn't understand what Kisuke or Yoruichi were thinking, sending a group of four kids into Seireitei for some half-assed rescue operation. Something fishy was going on, something his two fellow fugitives were keeping tight-lipped about, and he didn't like it. Kisuke might have brought him up to speed on recent history, but he sure as hell wasn't telling him everything.

There were a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle. He could believe that Kurosaki had attracted a Hollow, even one powerful enough to overpower a seated officer of the Thirteenth Division, such as Kuchiki Rukia, and ending up with as a temporary Shinigami powerful enough to fell said attacking Hollow, but not inside his own house. Naruto knew for a fact that every inch of that house was covered in Kidō barriers to prevent any Hollow from even sensing their presence.

No Hollow, short of a coordinated attack by dozens of Menos Grande, could even scratch that house, and yet a single Hollow was able to? Yeah, he was calling bullshit on that, especially if Ichigo had been able to kill it with a few swipes without a lick of training.

Something was off, Kisuke and Tessai were keeping it a secret, something he expected from the former but certainly not the latter. Yoruichi could be excused as he hadn't even talked to her, but her willingness to train two teenagers was telling enough, especially since her usual training sessions were either devastatingly brutal, far too playful, or filled with irate jibes.

Still, he'd given his word to Isshin, or at least implied it, and he'd agreed to Kisuke's plea; he couldn't allow for these kids to end up dead. He trusted Yoruichi implicitly, Kisuke too, not that he ever shown it, but he couldn't, wouldn't, trust Seireitei, even if Yoruichi was coming along. In order for him to make sure, he would need to involve himself in their training.

While that initial idea was good, there were some problems, the most glaring being the time constraints. Ten days, seven now, wasn't a lot to work with, meaning he would need to prioritize.

Orihime, while having an intriguing and multipurpose ability, was purely a purely support-type fighter. She may have the potential to become so much more than what she currently was, it would take too long for him to properly train her, both due to her inexperience and also her pacifist mindset.

Chad, brutish and durable, was similar to Orihime in both experience and mindset. He was certainly a more frontline fighter and could take care of himself, but he was also more of a supporter/follower like Orihime.

He had only taken a cursory look at Ryūken's kid, Uryū, but it was enough for him to tell that the kid was working hard enough by himself. There was no need for him to interfere in that, especially since Quincy abilities typically took a long time to evolve, at least without extremely dangerous training techniques.

That left only Ichigo.

Masaki's kid, also the one with the most experience fighting in general, but Shinigami specifically, even if it was just the one time. Uryū was the most experienced in terms of hunting Hollows, but Ichigo was the one who had been able to take on a Vice-Captain, even if said Shinigami was only at one-fifth strength. By all accounts, the kid had the most potential, heritage-wise, and Kisuke himself said that the kid grew at an astounding pace, having been able to significantly injure a Menos Grande enough to send it back to Hueco Mundo in less than two months with only borrowed Shinigami powers.

Ichigo was a frontline fighter, the one that tied together his fellow classmates in their future crusade, and he would be the one in most danger. Seireitei's response to Ryoka wasn't typically light, what with the Central Forty-Six, but the Captain Commander, the Sōtaichō, while stern and old, was amenable to allowing young souls to go mostly unpunished; he would surely allow Orihime and Chad to return to Karakura without much fuss. Uryū might be a bit of a problem, what with being a Quincy, a onetime enemy, but the Quincy genocide hadn't been something that the Sōtaichō ever felt good about, only ever going through with it because the radicals in both the Quincy groups and the Central Forty-Six were unrelenting, thus forcing his hand, but the pestering of both of his students for clemency on behalf of the young Ishida progeny would ensure his safety.

What Seireitei could not afford to overlook was Ichigo, and not just because of his Shinigami powers, though that would certainly play a role. It would be the combination of his unnaturally high reiryoku, his uncanny resemblance to the deceased Shiba Kaien, and his influence on Kuchiki Rukia, a Shinigami noble. Seireitei wouldn't allow such an unknown quantity to be left by himself, even if he didn't invade Seireitei.

Plus, if he was lucky, Ichigo just might learn fast enough that there would be enough time to train the others as well.

With his mind set, Naruto walked over to Kisuke, who was looking at a sleeping Ichigo in amusement.

"Kisuke, I'm taking over from here," Ichigo said, surprisingly the other man.

"Why?" Kisuke asked, his eyes shining with genuine curiosity.

"You can't seriously think that he's strong enough to pull off a rescue attempt, do you?" Naruto asked in return.

"If they sneak in, it should be enough," Kisuke said.

"Do you really think a Shiba can pull off any mission requiring stealth?" Naruto said flatly.

"True," Kisuke admitted, before his eyes lit up in curiosity once more. "What do you plan to teach him?"

Naruto grinned wickedly.

III

"Taichō," a soft, feminine voice spoke.

Looking up, Aizen Sōsuke effected a polite expression at the sight of his Lieutenant.

"Hinamori-san, please come in and have a seat," Aizen replied, beckoning the young woman into his office.

She walked in quietly, her gait almost timid from modesty and respect, taking one of the two seats in front of his desk.

"What can I help you with?" Aizen prompted politely in a kind voice.

"Do you need any help with your paperwork?" Hinamori replied in a soft voice.

Aizen shook his head with a smile. "No, thank you. It may seem like a lot but it is the monthly budgeting reports, which aren't due for at least a week."

"Now, I'm sure that isn't the only reason you've come in here," Aizen stated, his attention split between listening to his lieutenant and going over the sheet of paper he had been looking over before she entered. "What is one your mind?"

She seemed hesitant for a moment before she replied, "It's about Rukia-san."

Aizen paused, carefully dabbing the ink from the brush in his before returning it to its proper stationary place. He looked up, giving his full attention to the young woman in front of him considering her.

"Kuchiki-san, correct?" Aizen inquired, receiving a nod from Hinamori. "Is this about her execution?"

"Yes, Aizen-taichō," Hinamori said with a nod, "I was wondering if you could tell me what exactly is going on."

"What do you mean?" Aizen replied, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"Well, Rukia-san and I have been friends for some time, but no one is telling me why she's being punished," Hinamori said, a look of frustration barely kept off her face.

"Hmm, odd. I hadn't realized that there was an information shutdown," Aizen muttered to himself before he returned his focus back to his Lieutenant. "Kuchiki-san is responsible for deserting her duty and transferring her Shinigami powers to a human."

"But why would she be executed for that?" Hinamori asked in reply, "That isn't a major offence, at least the latter part. And Rukia-san isn't one to neglect her duties."

"That is usually true, but you are aware of the Kuchiki noble house, correct?" Aizen said, getting a confused nod in return. "The Kuchiki clan is most notable for their duty of creating and preserving the law. As such, any and all Shinigami officers coming from that house are expected to strictly adhere to the rules and regulations of the Gotei Thirteen, more so than any other Shinigami. Thus, any Kuchiki officer that breaks the law is more liable to heavier punishments than any other Shinigami."

"Shouldn't she at least get a trial?" Hinamori asked, a bit of desperation entering her voice.

"Actually, yes, she should," Aizen replied, his words brightening his lieutenant, at least until he continued, "but, because of her status as an adopted member instead of being born into the Kuchiki clan, her situation is a bit complicated. It also doesn't help that there are concerns about her stability due to her involvement in tragedy of the former Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Division, which I believe she was on probation for up until recently. Her own brother unofficially testified that she had been recalcitrant in returning with him, which certainly doesn't help matters."

Hinamori looked confused, which drew a sigh a from him as he smiled sympathetically. "I know this matter is…difficult, and I have questioned Central's decision myself, but anything short of the Sōtaichō's interference won't stop it. Even then, he is duty-bound to carry out their decision, as we all are."

She appeared sullen, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

"Take the rest of the day off, I insist," Aizen said, raising a hand when she opened her mouth to refuse. "You deserve some time to prepare yourself. If you need tomorrow, or the rest of the week, let me know. It's the least I can do."

She thanked him before politely excusing herself, after he dismissed her, exiting the office and closing the door gently. When he was sure she had disappeared, he leaned back in his chair and let out a soft sigh.

Hinamori was, justifiably, upset, but emotion was not something Aizen was at all comfortable with. While he specifically picked Hinamori as his lieutenant because of her modest and subservient behavior, along with the appropriate hero worship and admiration he instilled within others, her soft-spoken nature also led her to be rather emotional.

 _At least she's polite_ , he thought to himself.

It was another of the reasons he picked her. Emotional Shinigami were a dime a dozen, as were those who were polite to their superiors, but those that could keep their emotions locked down enough to remain polite while still diligently completing their tasks were not that easy to find. The Sixth Division was full of polite Shinigami as much as the Eleventh Division was full of hotheads, but finding one that were both was difficult, and Hinamori was just that.

It also helped that she was a more proficient user of Kidō than of Zanjutsu, something that was a rarity in the Shinigami forces. The Eleventh was believed to contain the strongest Shinigami, yet few were even halfway decent in the Kidō arts. It was something of a goal of Aizen's to have a lieutenant that was strong enough to wipe out the other Lieutenants with Kidō alone then have another brute.

Even if it was all meaningless in the end, he demanded excellence of his division, as their weakness would reflect badly on him, which would also encourage others to take a closer look into him.

That was another thing that brought a headache to him; people were suspicious of him. It all started went back to the Hollowfied Captains and Lieutenants that odd century or so ago. If things had gone as they should have, there wouldn't be any suspicion aimed at him.

Aizen snapped out of his thoughts when he felt a familiar presence enter the room.

"Taichō," Ichimaru said with his typical grin, his eyes narrowed into slits.

"Gin," Aizen replied with his fake smile on his face. He could never tell what Gin was truly after, though he suspected it was merely for amusement. All that seemed to matter to the man was whether or not he got a kick out of something.

"I got some info ya might want to hear," Gin said, his grin growing just a touch wider.

That grin worried Aizen. If there was one thing Aizen had ever learned about Gin, it was that if he was grinning larger than usual, it could mean only two things. Either whatever he was about to say would either be something Aizen approved of or something that would infuriate him, and there was usually no way to tell a difference. Either way, Gin would get a kick out of it.

He made sure that worry was never broadcasted. He had an appearance to maintain. So, Aizen merely raised an eyebrow.

"I hear Uzumaki's in Karakura," Gin said, his grin widening just a touch more.

Aizen was a master of control. His Zanpakutō created perfect illusions, able to easily manipulate each and every one of the five senses of whoever witnessed its Shikai release. He was able to play the entire Gotei Thirteen like a chessboard, fooling them with a mask of kindness while running around their backs, even their fronts, doing whatever he wanted. He even slaughtered the entire Central Forty-Six, ordering them to do his bidding, to destroy the one thing that stood between him and the final component in order to create a complete Hōgyoku, which would enable him to transcend to true godhood.

Despite all of that, he couldn't stop his eye from twitching.

"Leave."

"Gotcha, Taichō," Gin replied.

Despite his near blinding rage, he didn't miss Gin's shaking shoulders.

"Uzumaki Naruto. I will crush you under my heel," Aizen whispered his promise furiously under his breath.

No one was better than him, especially when it came to illusions or elaborate machinations. Not Urahara, not Uzumaki, no one.

He ignored the annoying familiar cackling laughter that slowly disappeared. Aizen would get back at him later. Right now, he had seething to do.

III

 _He had calculated everything perfectly, taken numerous precautions and had even more contingencies in place. Each and every Shinigami he had chosen for that experiment of his was selected through meticulous research and consideration._

 _Ushōda Hachigen, exceedingly kind, polite, and subservient, yet an equally brilliant Kidō specialist, expert in time-space barriers, and exceptionally perceptive._

 _Hirako Shinji, unnaturally suspicious and deceitful tactician, enough so to see through Aizen's mask and recruit him as his Lieutenant to keep an eye on him._

 _Ōtoribashi Rōjūrō, laidback and seemingly overdramatic, yet a fellow expert in auditory illusions that can ensnare even a deaf enemy._

 _Kuna Mashiro, seemingly naïve and childish but incredibly physically powerful and whimsically unpredictable._

 _Aikawa Love, peaceful and laidback, yet equally merciless and intuitive in battle._

 _Sarugaki Hiyori, disrespectful and seemingly unintelligent, yet the Lieutenant of the Twelfth Division and naturally suspicious and disdainful of both peers and superiors._

 _Yadōmaru Lisa, stern and detached, yet exceedingly curious, secretive, and insightful._

 _Muguruma Kensei, serious with an odd polar temperament, yet quite decisive and brutally efficient enough to ignore his pride and fight without holding back._

 _Each and every one of those Shinigami were unique, many with the potential to become even more powerful and skilled than they already were. By themselves, even in pairs, they were manageable, but they were all friendly with one another, ranging from amiable to damn near familial. If they were to band together, they had the potential to 'unmask' Aizen and interfere with his goals, especially considering one or two of them had already been suspicious of him during his days as a lieutenant._

 _They needed to be stopped, but a massacre would have been suspicious, so the Hollowfication experiment served a triple purpose of destroying their potential, having them executed legally, and observing how the Hollowfication process would alter such a wide, yet powerful, group of subjects._

 _Everything had been going fine, the framing of Urahara Kisuke done wonderfully, as is typical of his performance, and even the defense and involvement of Shihōin Yoruichi and Tsukabishi Tessai, who were both childhood friends of Kisuke's, was accounted for._

 _Aizen had gotten excellent data from observing the Hollowfication process and both Urahara and Tsukabishi would have been far too busy worrying about saving and curing their fallen comrades to investigate Aizen or even provide a proper defense or alibi for themselves. This would have ultimately left them so psychologically strained that escape would be the only viable option for them. Doing so, the injured and unstable would only open them up to ambush when hunted down by either Seireitei on the orders of an enraged Central Forty-Six or by Aizen himself._

 _It was, unexpectedly, when the Hollowfied Shinigami, or Visored, and Urahara were in the holding cells that everything went to Hell, and not in the way that Aizen had believed. Between the disdainful Sarugaki, the suspicious Hirako, pessimistic Yadōmaru, and the scheming and distracted Urahara, the decision to escape should have been obvious, yet they all stayed, awaited their trial in front of the Central Forty-Six. It was an idiotic move, everyone knew that the Central Forty-Six were a bunch of stuck-up, ignorant, and bigoted nobles, who have made it clear that they see even the people of the outer districts of Rukongai as subhuman, so their opinion of Shinigami with Hollow powers would have been seen as monsters needing to be put down._

 _Yet, despite what should have been common sense to the 'guilty' party, they stayed. Not only did they stay, during the trial, Urahara had been in well enough state of mind to not only somehow bullshit enough of a defense to convince the Sōtaichō and almost all of Central to believe him, but also to subtly point the finger at Aizen, as an open accusations of Aizen, a mere Lieutenant at the time who had been openly defensive of them, would have been ignored or turned back around on Urahara._

 _Thankfully, Aizen had already put a few of the Central Forty-Six under his Zanpakutō's effect and was able to twist Urahara's defense just enough that those under his spell rejected their arguments. It had been done as a precaution, as Ichimaru Gin had joked that they might be crazy enough to stay behind and Tōsen had been adamant about planning for that contingency._

 _Unfortunately, due to the duration of the trial, it was enough for the Hollowfied Shinigami to recover their strength enough to escape just when things were about to hit the fan._

 _It was always a possibility for them to escape both Aizen and Seireitei's forces hunting them, but the escape that Aizen had planned for would have allowed for him to, at the very least, keep track of him, for both scientific and strategic purposes. Due to the shifting time tables and the sheer chaos that the trial put on Seireitei, Urahara, Shihōin, Tsukabishi, and the Visored all escaped quietly, untraceable to both Seireitei and Aizen._

 _Of course, Aizen knew exactly what had gone wrong. When he had been manipulating events so that the perfect squad formations would be assigned into his trap, he had overlooked a relatively new policy change. When a support team is formed in response to a call for backup, a member of the Fourth Division needed to be added on. Aizen, in swamped by research and ensuring all parts of his plan went correctly, had failed to pick up the newest policy change as it had come up in one of the meetings that he had used his sword's ability to avoid._

 _In his arrogance, when he had seen that the only hiccup in his plan had been a Fourth Division member, he hadn't thought much of it, fully believing that anyone short of a Lieutenant in that division was utterly useless._

 _After meticulously going over what could possibly have gone wrong with the escaped fugitives, Aizen had come to the conclusion that the only odd variable had been the Fourth Division member. In his pursuit of self-improvement, he had researched the odd variable._

 _The Fourth Division member that had been sent out with the backup squad was a Third Seat, Uzumaki Naruto._

 _He would look into this Uzumaki Naruto. He had, somehow, disrupted his plans. It would not happen again._

 _He would make sure of it._

III

"Ready to go?" Naruto said, walking towards the group of four teenagers. They all tensed, their backs almost jolting straight, Ichigo's hand gripping the handle of the sheathed sword strapped to his waist, Chad's hands fisted loosely as his feet separated a tad, Orihime's hands clapped together in front of her as her feet also separated a tad, one of Uryū's hands forming a sort of claw with his palm facing downwards that almost hid a soft blue glow, and each one of them moved to keep him in their line of sight as their eyes flickered all around them.

Internally, Naruto couldn't help but grin, but refrained from letting one slip onto his face.

"The hell happened to your face?" Ichigo said after a tense moment.

Naruto quietly considered him for a moment before he grinned wickedly. "It's a looong story, and you know I feel about lectures, so are you sure you want to find, Berry-chan?"

Uryū audibly gulped before sending a wide-eyed glare at Ichigo, his clawed hand twitching slightly in Ichigo's direction, who dutifully ignored it but shook his head while keeping his eyes on Naruto.

"I thought so," Naruto replied with a toothy smile, causing each of them to shudder, which he pretended to ignore as he turned to Kisuke. "We good to go, Geta-Bōshi?"

"Will you stop calling me that?" Kisuke replied with a frown. "Give me a second."

After a moment of fiddling, he shot them a thumbs-up. "This is a Senkaimon. Usually, this is made by adding Reishihenkankon to the top of the Senkaimon and Ketsugōfu is used to cov-"

"Shut it, Geta-Bōshi, we're already late and you're not helping," Naruto cut in, earning a depressed pout from the man who had been happily explaining. "What's the time limit for this one?"

"Seeing as I had a bit more time, this one can hold up for hours, if needed," Kisuke boasted with a smile before it deflated a little, "though I wouldn't do that if I were you. You are already late, like, really late."

Naruto stayed silent for a moment before he took out a pocket watch, wincing when he saw the time, before returning it to his pocket at staring at the Senkaimon, considering.

"How many hours?" Naruto asked Kisuke, who tilted his head curiously.

"At least five, maybe six," Kisuke replied, looking to want to ask but keeping his mouth shut, if barely.

"You connect directly to the Dangai, right? That's how you avoid Seireitei's sensors," Naruto half-asked, half-stated.

"Correct," Kisuke replied, his eyes boring into Naruto's.

"Can you check if its empty?" Naruto asked.

"I always make sure it is when I activate it," Kisuke replied.

Naruto nodded his head a few times. "Good. We're guaranteed to be too late if we go through now."

"What!?" Ichigo exclaimed, finally broken out of his stiff state. "Why did you hold us back for so long?! We could've avoided this if we had left without your fuc-"

Ichigo cut himself off as Uryū stomped on his foot, who he turned to glare at but was met with a stern look that made him clench his jaw shut.

"Thank you, Uryū," Naruto said, before turning back to Kisuke. "The Dangai's flow of time is somewhere around two-thousand times faster, right?"

Kisuke's eyes narrowed at Naruto, his hand coming up to pull the edge of his hat down to shadow his eyes slightly. "Yeah."

"Can you force the Kōryū to increase at an exponential rate?" Naruto said.

"Naruto," Kisuke said, a warning edge to his voice. "What you're suggesting is highly theoretical, and just as equally dangerous."

"The average trip through the Dangai at a Captain's max speed is, what, a minute? Half that?" Naruto said.

"You would have a tenth of that, if you're lucky," Kisuke said, his tone not differing.

"I broke nearly half my skeleton because of one Shunpo, nearly exhausting myself," Naruto replied. "and that was centuries ago. I've gotten better."

Kisuke just stared at him.

"Stakes are high, Kisuke. Unless you think you drop us right on top of Sōkyoku Hill, this is the only way," Naruto stated.

Kisuke stared for a moment longer before he sighed. After a minute of surveying the makeshift Senkaimon, he takes out a dozen sheets of paper and tosses them at the gate, each of them flying to a specific part of the gate and easily melding onto it.

"I figured this was what you were thinking of when you asked me to improve the Senkaimon gate time," Kisuke said, eyes still pointed at the gate. "We're breaking a lot of rules here."

"That's the life we live," Naruto replied seriously, before he beckoned the kids closer to him. "Put a hand on my shoulder and keep a tight grip."

"What're we doing?" Ichigo said, a confused frown on his face, though he complied, as did the others.

"No matter what happens, do not let go. I don't care how painful or uncomfortable, you do not let go, do you understand?" Naruto said, his eyes flicking over to each of them, getting nods in return. The claws digging into his scalp let him know that at least Yoruichi had heard and understood.

"Kisuke, fire it up and give me the ready signal," Naruto said, starting to take large, slow deep breaths as he reached deep into his reiryoku.

"Activated," Kisuke said, his voice strained, letting Naruto know that he was using his own reiatsu to help the process along, though he mostly ignored it as he focused a vast majority of his reiatsu.

"Go!" Kisuke grunted, voice strained more than Naruto had heard for quite some time.

A second passed, then another, and then all Naruto knew was fire.

III – Author's Note – Word Count: ~6.2k – Published 4/10/2018

I got a chapter out sooner than I thought I would. I am still not sure the exact direction this story is headed for, but I do have some ideas, for Naruto's past, for his effect on the Bleach universe, but I am not sure how I see it really ending or how far into the canon plot I want to get into. Also, I have a couple ideas for his Zanpakutō, but I'm not yet sure which I want to go with, though that itself will be comedic, I think. Oh, and yeah, Aizen and Naruto will be enemies, but not like how you think, and Ichigo will continue to be Aizen's true nemesis, which I think was the truest thing for Ichigo canon-wise as Yhwach just didn't really cut it as Ichigo's enemy, what with his stupid reality-warping, multiverse-clairvoyant, Voldemort rip-off abilities.

Seriously, Yhwach didn't want to die, had the ability to mark people with his organization, was immortal, had a prophecy, and split his soul/abilities with people/objects/the protagonist. The only difference between Yhwach and Voldemort is that one had a more consistent character and the other came across half-assed and waaay too powerful. Yhwach and the Quincies got their asses beat (massacred, I think, need to double check canon on that) centuries ago and now they come back but utterly ruin Shinigami characters that trained to take on fucking Aizen. No joke about that, Renji even said so in the Fullbring(er?) arc that he trained for seventeen months to take on a guy who evolved to be stronger than Ichigo's Final Getsuga Tenshō form, tanked fucking Mugetsu, and you're telling me that that guy got his ass beat by a bunch of Quincies? I can respect the fact that the author did right by the Sōtaichō by giving him an appropriately overkill badass Bankai (resurrect your enemies like some Edo Tensei craziness?) that befitted a guy who could keep reign over a military state for a thousand years and made sure that the only one who could even handle his stolen Bankai would be the god-like being. I mean, I think the Quincies were cool, strength and ability wise, but they just weren't handled right. Also, how the hell did Seireitei not know about a shit ton of Quincies massacring Hollows in Hueco Mundo? You don't think a guy as fucked up as Kurotsuchi would just leave that place without sensors or surveillance equipment or something, right?

Anyways, maybe it's a bad time to tell you that I'm considering a Quincy powers!Naruto crossover story. I'm actually considering way too many crossovers and/or other stories, as I know that would detract from the stories that I already having going on and I don't want to be that guy that has way too many stories up that keeps posting new ones and delays, or flat out doesn't, update the older ones, even though I kind of am like that with An Unworkable Gig. Maybe I'll just do a super crazy long one-shot to get it out of my system or something.

As always, until next time, don't die.


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